Ayoko Design would like to extend a huge thank you to Rebecca Smith and Charli Feener from Fast Track Films for doing such an amazing job capturing the Christmas spirit at our Table Stories event in December at Blue Moon Furniture store. As well, a special thank you to Tracy Koga from Hue for facilitating this filming project.
TABLE STORIES
Community Tablescapes Decorated for Christmas & the Holidays
Tracy Koga and her production team at Hue did a wonderful job creating this video for Winnipeg Harvest. Take a peek to learn more about our Down to Earth cookbook project, and please help us reach our fundraising goal of $100,000 by sharing this video on social media.
We are planning to do a second print run of cookbooks, and hope you will tell all your friends and family about this amazing local project. The cookbooks are only $10 and make a great Holiday gift. Who doesn’t love soup?
To learn more about Tracy Koga and Hue, visit ilikehue.com.
To learn more about Winnipeg Harvest and to make a donation during the holiday season, visit winnipegharvest.org
Since we first launched our Down to Earth: Home Made Soups in Handmade Vessels cookbook at Winnipeg Harvest’s Empty Bowl Celebrity Auction on October 9th, we have nearly all 10,000 copies of our cookbook in circulation, and most have been sold.
Within the first couple weeks, we sold 5,000 copies, and we reached 6,000 copies within the first month. People in the publishing industry understand just how difficult it is to achieve this kind of success. Books and magazines published locally, by an independent publisher, just don’t move that quickly. So, why has our fundraising project been so successful? There is definitely a secret recipe, but the most important ingredients and key to our success have been COMMUNITY and COLLABORATION. It literally “takes a village”, and we are so honoured to have been part of this project.
Down to Earth is a product our Ayoko Design’s collaboration with the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s (WAG) CRAFTED Show + Sale, November 2 & 3. Now long time friends of Ayoko Design, Joyce Berry and Hennie Corrin, also the founder’s of CRAFTED, were instrumental in connecting me with the CRAFTED event. Last year, I came on board as the Philanthropic Chair. During it’s four years running, CRAFTED has supported collected hand knit scarves for Chase the Chill, hand made quilts and pillow cases for kids in hospital care, hand knit toques, mitts and socks for the Boys & Girls Club of Winnipeg, and now in 2018, we have created our Down to Earth cookbook in support of Winnipeg Harvest to fulfill the philanthropic component of the CRAFTED event.
Featuring 20 local chefs, who created the recipes, and 20 local ceramic artists, who made the beautiful soup bowls, Down to Earth showcases Winnipeg’s amazing local talent, and is an example of what a community working together can achieve. The WAG’s Director of Retail Operations, Sherri Van Went, was instrumental in coordinating our contributors and was never short of ideas. We had a lot of fun working together on this project, and it was a pleasure adding her to our creative team. Catherine Maksymiuk, Manager, Media & Marketing at the WAG also worked very hard at promoting our project. And, thank you to our editor, Jenny Gates and for the amazing photos by WAG photographer, Lianed Marcoleta and her assistant Ken Gregory.
Our project also could not have happened without the support of the WAG staff and CRAFTED volunteers who put on an amazing show, and Winnipeg Harvest’s CEO, Keren Taylor-Hughes, Colleen McVarish, Assistant Director of Development and Communications, Community Kitchen Facilitator, Anneliese Schoppe, and the Winnipeg Harvest volunteers who continue to work so hard selling our cookbooks.
